Podcasts

Paul Bradley Carr, 1414 Degrees

Paul Bradley Carr, author of the new novel 1414 Degrees, and I talk about his new novel, writing in multiple POVs, the crossover from nonfiction to fiction, opening a bookstore, and so much more.

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 (Recorded in October 2022)
Find us on Patreon.com/writersonwriting
Music and sound design by Travis Barrett
 Barbara DeMarco-Barrett: www.penonfire.com
Marrie Stone: www.marriestone.com
Travis Barrett: https://travisbarrett.mykajabi.com

Novelist Liska Jacobs, The Pink Hotel, on Writers on Writing

Novelist Liska Jacobs, author of The Pink Hotel (FSG) talks with Barbara DeMarco-Barrett about influences, first drafts, bloglines, synopses, and the art, craft, and business of writing. 

 

Liska Jacobs is also author of Catalina and The Worst Kind of Want. She holds an MFA from the University of California, Riverside. Her essays and short fiction have appeared in The RumpusLos Angeles Review of BooksLiterary HubThe Millions, and The Hairpin, among other publications. The Pink Hotel is her third novel.

(Recorded on 9/27/22)
 Music and sound design by Travis Barrett
Visit www.Patreon.com/writersonwriting and become a supporter. There are perks!
 Barbara DeMarco-Barrett: www.penonfire.com
Marrie Stone: www.marriestone.com
Travis Barrett: https://travisbarrett.mykajabi.com

Novelists Celeste Ng, Our Missing Hearts

Novelist Celeste Ng, author of Our Missing Hearts and I discuss her latest novel (NYT review, 10/2/22). They talk about world building, developing characters, reading for writers, and much more.

Celeste Ng is the author of three novels, Everything I Never Told You, Little Fires Everywhere, and Our Missing Hearts. Celeste grew up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and Shaker Heights, Ohio. She graduated from Harvard University and earned an MFA from the University of Michigan (now the Helen Zell Writers’ Program at the University of Michigan).  Her fiction and essays have appeared in the New York Times, The Guardian, and many other publications, and she is a recipient of the Pushcart Prize, a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, and a Guggenheim Fellowship, among other honors.

 (Recorded on 9/23/2022)
Music and sound design by Travis Barrett
We are now on Patreon! If you’ve gleaned useful tidbits over the years–24 years we’ve been broadcasting the show–consider becoming a supporter. Visit Patreon.com/writersonwriting
 Barbara DeMarco-Barrett: www.penonfire.com
Marrie Stone: www.marriestone.com
Travis Barrett: https://travisbarrett.mykajabi.com

Novelist Antoine Wilson, author of Mouth to Mouth

Novelist Antoine Wilson, author of Mouth to Mouth, and I discuss setting, plotting, creating characters, ironic endings, and more. About Mouth to Mouth, one of Barack Obama’s favorite books of 2022, Kirkus said, “A deliciously nasty morality play in the guise of a thriller.”

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(Recorded on August 18, 2022)
Music and sound design by Travis Barrett
Support the show on Patreon.
Barbara DeMarco-Barrett: www.penonfire.com
Marrie Stone: www.marriestone.com
Travis Barrett: https://travisbarrett.mykajabi.com

Isaac Fitzgerald, Dirtbag, Massachusetts: A Confessional

Isaac Fitzgerald, author of the new memoir, Dirtbag, Massachusetts: A Confessional, and I talk about the art, craft, and business of writing his memoir.

Isaac is the New York Times bestselling author of Dirtbag, Massachusetts. He appears frequently on The Today Show and is also the author of the bestselling children’s book How to Be a Pirate as well as the co-author of Pen & Ink: Tattoos and the Stories Behind Them and Knives & Ink: Chefs and the Stories Behind Their Tattoos (winner of an IACP Award). His writing has appeared in The New York TimesThe AtlanticEsquireThe GuardianThe Best American Nonrequired Reading, and numerous other publications. He lives in Brooklyn.

Download audio.
(Recorded on July 15, 2022 via Zoom)
 Music and sound design by Travis Barrett
Support the show on Patreon. Marrie and I appreciate every dollar.
 Barbara DeMarco-Barrett: www.penonfire.com
Marrie Stone: www.marriestone.com
Travis Barrett: https://travisbarrett.mykajabi.com

Novelist Jacinda Townsend, Mother Country

Jacinda Townsend, author of the novel Mother Country (Graywolf), and I discuss her new book and the setting of Morocco, alternating POVs, slavery, writing with the senses, and more. 

 
During her Fulbright year, on a layover in Morocco, Jacinda discovered the city of Marrakech and fell in love. Later that same year, on a trip to Northern Mali, she also first witnessed modern-day slavery: that incident inspired the research that eventually took her to Mauritania, where she met with escaped slaves and anti-slavery activists and began the work that would become her newly published novel, Mother Country (Graywolf, 2022).  Mother Country is told in the voices of an American woman struggling with infertility who kidnaps a young Moroccan girl, and the young mother, escaped from Mauritanian slavery, who loses her. Jacinda is also the author of Saint Monkey (Norton, 2014), which is set in 1950’s Eastern Kentucky and is a love letter to a Black community that has all but disappeared. Saint Monkey won the 2015 Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize for best fiction written by a woman and the James Fenimore Cooper Prize for that year’s best historical fiction. Saint Monkey was also the 2015 Honor Book of the Black Caucus of the American Library Association.

 

(Recorded via Zoom on July 28, 2022)
Music and sound design by Travis Barrett
Check out our Patreon page!
 Barbara DeMarco-Barrett: www.penonfire.com
Marrie Stone: www.marriestone.com
Travis Barrett: https://travisbarrett.mykajabi.com